


The Dreams of Flowers

by LookingForDroids



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Dark!Aerith, Dubious Consent, F/F, Ficlet, Hypnotism, Unabashed idfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14775363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: Tifa meets a kind stranger in the slums, and follows her home.





	The Dreams of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure whether an M rating or a T rating would be more appropriate here. I decided to err on the side of caution, but this isn’t very explicit.
> 
> As a side note, Aeris is a favorite of mine and her nature in this AU is not meant to reflect my feelings toward her in canon.

Aeris lives in a church.

The place is in poor repair, even as slum dwellings go – a fallen down roof, cracked stained glass windows and dusty pews. The ground is carpeted in the same yellow flowers she’s been selling, growing up through holes in the wooden floor. It’s beautiful, and more than a little lonely, with a hushed stillness that hangs over everything like a shroud. Tifa takes a step into the building, and then another, trying not to disturb the quiet.

“You live here?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I have for years,” Aeris says, twirling in place with her arms open to the sanctuary, the stained glass and the altar. “Since my mother returned to the Planet. I sleep on a bed of earth and dream the dreams of flowers.”

Her hand lights on Tifa’s arm again, and when Tifa turns, she’s smiling. “Nothing evil can get in here. That’s how I know you’re safe.”

She sounds sounds like she’s teasing, but it’s hard to tell. The people who make their lives in Midgar’s slums have some strange superstitions, and Tifa’s seen enough strangeness of her own that she’s not too quick to dismiss them.

But now it’s the flowers themselves that have caught her eye, springing up gold on green where the floorboards have broken – like a patch of stray sunlight, a bit of life in a city that has precious little of anything resembling it. She steps closer, rapt, and kneels down to look. They seem delicate. They can’t possibly be, surviving here.

“Can I take one?”

“Of course,” Aeris says. “But you know you’ll have to give me something in return?”

And she ought to say something to that – haggle over price, as Midgar vendors do, maybe even flirt a little – but in that moment, whatever Aeris means to ask for seems a fair enough trade. Tifa reaches out, feeling leaves and petals brush her skin, until she selects a small yellow blossom much like any other. The stem snaps cleanly, and she stands, cradling the flower between her palms.

There’s a breath of wind in the still air of the church, and all of a sudden, Aeris is close behind her. She goes still, feeling hands settle on her waist, the brush of fabric against the back of her legs. She ought to step away, but she feels oddly heavy, warm and languid beneath the weight of Aeris’s touch, and she doesn’t want to move; it’s hard to think clearly, and the few coherent thoughts in her mind would make a SOLDIER blush.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Aeris says. Her breath ghosts over the side of Tifa’s neck as her hands trail up the inside of her shirt, still so cool against her skin. “Why you followed me back home.”

“I – ”

_I think you’ve misinterpreted. I don’t expect anything –_

The words won’t come. She’s caught in the undertow of Aeris’s hands against her ribs, brushing the underside of her breasts, and now the edge of teeth against her throat, nipping at her skin.

“You can say no, you know.”

She can, she thinks hazily. She doesn’t think she wants to.

“Will you let me?” Aeris whispers, and Tifa can do nothing but agree. Tifa goes still, pulse thundering in her ears. She’s dimly aware that she ought to be frightened, or maybe angry. Instead it feels like she’s floating, or maybe falling, or flying, and she hears the sound she makes when Aeris’s mouth closes again on her throat. It isn’t protest. There’s pain, sharp before it fades into anesthetized fog, and the wet warmth of blood flowing down her skin before a cool tongue laps it away.

“What – ” she manages.

“You did promise,” Aeris says, soft against her throat.

 _Yes_ , she thinks, _I did._

Her mind is full of stories of Lower Plate monsters and Nibelheim ghosts, all of them hungry for the warmth they’ve been denied. Those ghosts aren’t real, but none of this seems real either – not the memory of pain, and not the warm, heavy lassitude that settles over her as Aeris helps her down to her knees, and then to sit, cradled in arms that seem stronger than they should be. When she looks up, it’s into green mako eyes, pupils gone dark with hunger or desire, and a mouth smeared with the blood that still runs in a trickle down Tifa’s chest, staining her shirt red.

She feels light-headed as healing magic washes over her, soothing away the distant traces of pain. She lifts a hand to her throat – the skin is unbroken – and feels cool fingers wrap around her own in a grip too strong to break.

“I don’t do that for everyone,” Aeris says, smiling impishly, as if she’s sharing a secret. “But most people aren’t as kind as you.”

She sweeps Tifa’s hair back from her forehead, then leans forward to kiss her with bloodstained lips, the taste of iron heavy on her tongue. It’s sweet, Tifa thinks, like the scent of flowers, like the chill of Aeris’s hands on her skin, lifting up her shirt by slow centimeters.

She ought to be frightened, yes. It’s hard to remember why.


End file.
